Memorial Days

By Bud Focht

Hi my name is Bud and Memorial Day has always been by favorite federal holiday.

There are many federal holidays I like; Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas. But Columbus Day? Washington’s Birthday? Inauguration Day? Just an excuse for some people other than me to have a day off from work.

Yes, Memorial Day is my favorite, but probably not for the right reasons.

Memorial Day was intended to be a day for remembering the people who have died while serving their country in the armed forces. It used to be called Decoration Day back in the Civil War days, when the grave sites of buried soldiers would be decorated with flowers and ribbons.

But that was a little before my time.

I realize that these heroes, who have fallen in all of our wars, deserve everyone’s respect and gratitude for their service. But we already have another federal holiday to serve that purpose, Veteran’s Day. Should we discriminate between veterans who lived and those who died? I mean no disrespect when I say soldiers are not supposed to die for their country, they are supposed to make the enemy die for his country.

Sometimes the ones who come home from war suffer more than the ones who do not.

But that is fodder for a totally different blog.

On a lighter note, to me, Memorial Day has always meant the start of summer, just like Labor Day marks the end of summer. (I just got a bad feeling by simply thinking of the END of summer. We are still a month away from the summer solstice, for Pete’s sake)

Of course, the official start of summer is when the Summer Solstice takes place. That is when the Earth’s tilt is most inclined toward the sun, on June 21. I am afraid I can’t wait that long to begin enjoying summer. I usually try to start on Memorial Day.

My 70-hour work weeks usually end around Memorial Day, as does my working nights and weekends.

And memorial doesn’t always have to mean something associated with death. A memorial can be any object that serves as a focus for memory of something.

Since my wife Terry was diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease her short term memory has gradually gotten worse and worse.  Eventually it will affect her long-term memory as well, and unfortunately we are starting to get into that area.

When Terry was first diagnosed I began making her write in a “memory book” as often as possible. It was intended to help her remember what she did that day, and when she goes back and reads it sometime in the future hopefully it would help trigger certain memories that her ‘out of service’ hippocampus can no longer help her find.

Before I had spell-checker I had Terry. I was always the worst speller I knew, and when the kids were growing up and we were helping them with their homework, it was always Terry who would act as the dictionary. I was such a bad speller I had trouble even finding the word in the dictionary. Even now, I sometimes butcher a word so bad that even the spell-checker can’t help.

But lately I have noticed that Terry can no longer spell simple words. We were making a shopping list the other day and she couldn’t spell ‘garlic’.

Terry and I recently had one last work-related road trip (last of this academic school year, anyway) and for the most part it went great. Even though I was working Terry and I were together 24 hours a day for the four days so in that respect it was tremendous.

The first day we traveled and I had to work that evening. The second day in the hotel we showered to begin the day. The third day we had an early start so while I showered Terry just washed up at the sink. The fourth day, before we began our trip home, Terry went to shower and didn’t know how to work it. I showed her, even though I didn’t have to show her just two days before. After a while when I heard the water turn off I went in to make sure everything was okay. When she opened the shower curtain, her face was covered with soap suds and her hair was dry. She forgot to rinse her face off and to wash her hair.

That was a first.

When I made a crude remark of what she looked like she got a kick out of it and laughed it off, as she often does. Thank God she has such a good sense of humor.

But it scared me.

It seems no matter how much we are enjoying life every once in a while there is a sudden reminder of the shit we are in.

Not being able to spell a word that even I can do without spell-checker. Forgetting to rinse the soap off your face or wash your hair.

These occurrences are happening more and more frequently now. I am afraid the ‘end of days’ is coming. The great tribulation. Armageddon.

And it is scary.  

Terry’s beliefs in God (she calls him by his ‘old school’ name, Jehovah), Heaven and the afterlife, along with her Bible Studies, tell her that the end is near. That Satan has taken over this world and it is only a matter of time before God pulls the plug. Remember from your Sunday School teachings Sodom and Gomorrah? How about Noah and his Ark. Things got so bad God had to step in and say ‘enough is enough’ or something like that.

Well, to be honest, I would not mind that. Not that I am suicidal or anything. But many years ago one of my kids asked me how I would like to die, if I could choose. I said I hope I am surrounded by my family and I got hit in the head with a nuclear bomb.

And I was serious. That way there would be no loved ones left behind to mourn, which in my opinion is the worst part of death. We would all go together, and, hopefully to a better place.

I would not mind if we ALL went, before Terry’s condition gets to the point where there would be great suffering all around.

Until next time, have a great Memorial Day. Remember those that left you behind, and begin to enjoy summer. Who knows, it could be your last.

Bud

Post Script

Speaking of the Summer Solstice, that is often called the ‘longest day’ due to the amount of time that day between sun up and sun down. The Alzheimer’s Association celebrates the ‘Longest Day’ by holding a fund-raiser on June 21. It is a sunrise-to-sunset event to honor the strength, passion and endurance of those living with Alzheimer’s and their caregivers. More on that later (as long as I don’t get hit in the head with a nuclear bomb before then, that is).